Research Paradigms

1. Research Paradigms
Qualitative Research Concepts

2. Most quantitative research texts identify
three primary types of research:
• Exploratory – research on a
concept, people, or situation that
the researcher knows little about.
• Descriptive – research on a
concept, people, or situation that
the researcher knows something
about, but just wants to describe
what he/she has found or
observed.
• Explanatory – involves testing a
hypothesis and deriving that
hypothesis from available theories.

3. Generally these types of studies fit within our understanding
of qualitative and quantitative research.
• Exploratory research involves
qualitative studies (observation,
interviews, and content analysis)
• Explanatory research involves
quantitative studies and
hypothesis testing.
• Descriptive studies most often
involve quantitative research
techniques or a combination of
qualitative and quantitative
method.
(Please note however, that Rossman & Rollis use
the term descriptive to describe some types of
qualitative research)

4. When researchers talk about different approaches
to research, they talk about “paradigms.”
• A paradigm is a “worldview” or a
set of assumptions about how
things work.
• Rossman & Rollis define paradigm
as “shared understandings of
reality”
• Quantitative and qualitative
research methods involve very
different assumptions about how
research should be conducted and
the role of the researcher.

5. Differences between
qualitative and quantitative research
• Involves unstructured
interviews,
observation, and
content analysis.
• Subjective
• Inductive
• Little structure
• Little manipulation of
subjects
• Takes a great deal of
time to conduct
• Little social distance
between researcher
and subject
• Involves experiments,
surveys, testing, and
structured content
analysis, interviews,
and observation.
• Objective
• Deductive
• High degree of
structure
• Some manipulation of
subjects
• May take little time to
conduct
• Much social distance
between researcher
and subject

6. Lets talk about some of the assumptions or values that are
part of qualitative or quantitative paradigms:
For example, do you think:
That the “truth” can be determined in
every situation?
Can everyone agree on the truth?
What evidence do you need to
determine what is the truth?

7. How is knowledge or truth generated?
• Are things true if they are printed
in books or the newspaper?
• Who determines the truth?
• Can different people hold different
perceptions about what is the
“truth”?
• Is an individual’s perception of the
truth determined by his or her
experiences and interactions with
other people?

8. Should society change or should it
stay the same?
• Is it the researcher’s
responsibility to change
society?
• Or should the researcher
remain objective or neutral
and only attempt to find new
knowledge?

9. Should the researcher’s personal experiences and
values influence his or her research?
• If so, how does the
researcher prevent personal
bias from influencing the
study?

10. To review, qualitative research is:
• Subjective – different people can
perceive the truth differently.
Qualitative research attempts to
find out how people perceive their
lives. Different people will have
different perspectives. The
researcher’s experiences, beliefs,
and values are incorporated into
the research design and analysis
of data.

11. In general, research bias is controlled
by:
• Keeping records on the research
process, data analysis, and
problems encountered.
• Conducting research in a
systematic way.
• Involving colleagues and research
participants in research design
and data analysis.
• Being “upfront about the
researcher’s own beliefs & values.
• (We will discuss specific
techniques later in the course)

12. Purpose of most qualitative research
is to:
• Increase knowledge of
people or situations that are
not usually studied
(especially, the experiences
of women, persons of color,
and people who are often
marginalized in society)
• Provide information that can
be used for social change.

13. Examples of research often used for
social change:
• Feminist research (assumes
women are oppressed in society –
research is to be used to help
reduce discrimination).
• Participatory action research –
people affected by a social
problem work with a researcher to
study a problem, collect data,
analyze data, make
recommendations, and use the
results to influence social change.

14. Rossman & Rollis identify 4 different paradigms – but the two
primary paradigms are:
• Positivism – associated with quantitative research.
Involves hypothesis testing to obtain “objective”
truth. Also used to predict what may happen at a
future date. Critical realism is a subtype of
positivism that incorporates some value
assumptions on the part of the researcher. It
involves looking at power in society. Researchers
primarily rely on quantitative data to do this.
• Interpretivism –associated with qualitative research.
Used to obtain an understanding of the word from
an individual perspective.
Critical Humanism is a subtype of the Interpretive
paradigm. The critical humanism approach is one in
which the researcher involves people studied in the
research process. Data is used for social change.

15. Two terms from the book that we
should talk about.
• Community of practice: People you work
and consult with in the course of a study.
A community of practice helps you
incorporate other points of view in your
work.
• Reflexivity – the relationship between the
research and people being studied. The
presence of the researcher affects the
people being studies (think of the
Hawthorne Effect from SWRK 170!). The
researcher is also influenced by the
people studied. Reflexivity in qualitative
research also pertains to the requirement
that the researcher think about what he or
she has found as well as the process of
doing research.

16. Two other important terms.
• Emic – the insider’s view and voice.
• Etic. The outsider’s view and voice.
***Researchers are most often outsiders
trying to understand a community, group,
or individuals. Emic refers to the view of
people in the community or the individuals
studied. However, there are different
approaches to qualitative research that
vary in the amount of “social distance”
between the researcher and people
studied. Next week we will listen to an
interviewer who became a part of the
community he studied!

17. Exercise for Today:
In groups, choose an object with
which you and your group
members are familiar (for example,
a can of Pepsi). Hand the object to
one person and ask her to
describe it in any way she
chooses. Continue this process
with four or five people until you
run out of things to say. Having
heard other’s descriptions, in what
way do you see the object
differently. How have individual
descriptions changed.